By snoadmin
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an obesity epidemic sweeping the nation. Like Rome in its gluttonous heyday, a staggering two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reported last year.
As a result, the health of a good chunk of this country is in rapid decline.
To counteract this growing epidemic, California Sen. Alex Padilla is proposing a state Senate bill that would mandate that any food facility with more than 14 franchises in the state place a food index on its menu.
The index would list the number of calories and carbohydrates, grams of saturated and trans fat, as well as other nutritional content.
His belief is that if Americans are better able to distinguish healthy foods from unhealthy foods, they will make better food choices.
Because we at the Daily Forty-Niner believe that most people choose their food based on taste rather than healthiness, forcing restaurants to put these indexes up would not likely change the eating habits of most Californians.
It’s no secret that most items on fast food and chain restaurant menus are not good for you.
If you don’t believe us, next time you order some food at In-N-Out watch how those high school kids make your freedom fries.
Believe us, those fryers have more grease in them than the ass-end of a pompadour.
No matter how bad some items may be for our health though, for some reason, people keep begging for more.
Sure, the instant gratification of having a full meal in under a half hour makes fast food and chain restaurants the ideal places to eat in this get-it-done-yesterday world. But, besides the convenience, the food in most of these types of places tastes really good.
Who among us can honestly say that their mouth has never creamed its pants at the mere sight of a Double-Double with grilled onions?
Although we know eating those dripping slabs of red meat slapped between two buns of bleached-blond, all-American white bread clogs the arteries, its indescribable flavor has an appeal that makes us want it, regardless of how detrimental it may be to our health.
It’s possible that a calorie index coyly minding its business in the corner of our favorite chain’s menu (waiting for us to notice it as we skim past every meaningless tart surrounding it, like an older woman does when she sees the naive boy she will devour later that evening) may make some people choose healthier foods.
But it definitely won’t work for the majority of us.
In a study done by the CDC in 2000, 12 focus groups of young adults were asked about their perceptions of “healthy eating.” The majority were well aware of what a “healthy diet” consists of. Despite being aware of how to eat healthy, though, nearly all claimed that they chose not to eat this way because of a “stronger preference for unhealthy foods.”
In addition, out of the small percentage who did make an effort to eat healthier foods, only “some” actually read the nutrition labels and noted the “number of grams of fat and carbohydrates.”
It’s also important to note that those who claimed to have read the labels did so only after the food was consumed or “out of boredom.”
Perhaps restaurants should be required to put the nutrition labels on paper placemats and give patrons a boxes of crayons. The warnings could get noticed if they come with better graphics, although they will most likely be overlooked if they’re hidden under a quadruple cheeseburger and a super-size order of greasy onion rings.
Although mandated calorie indexes seem like a great way to get people to stop eating fast food, the delicious eats these places keep pumping out could never keep anyone away for too long.
Until the day a restaurant comes up with a salad that tastes as good as the prisoner’s first kiss after release or an angus burger from McDonald’s, the American love for unhealthy food will always be prevalent.
Of course, if we all keep eating this way, it’s highly unlikely any of us will live long enough to see that day.
